


Alone in a Room

by hippydeath



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 04:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10983114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippydeath/pseuds/hippydeath
Summary: Missions go wrong and lovers are on the other side of the galaxy; the other end of a comm channel is never close enough for real comfort.





	Alone in a Room

**Author's Note:**

> What are timelines? What is canon? Don't answer either of those, we're working with some amalgamation of new and old canon here, because I'm still working my way through the new stuff.
> 
> For anyone who doesn't know the old EU, General Airen Cracken was the head of New Republic Intelligence during the X-Wing novels, and the Mon Remonda was the Mon Calamari flagship that Rogue Squadron occasionally used as a base ship. 
> 
> AGES ago, there was a fic prompts post, and @drinkupthesunrise sent me “ "I can't believe that you fell in love with me." luke/wedge, featuring wedge and his many many many insecurities “ which has since been mulling in my notebook.

The Mon Remonda’s medical bay is crowded. It’s just been one of those weeks. Wedge has lost track of what day it is, between frantic scrambles, a dunk in a bacta tank and what the medics are calling a residual concussion, but which the assure him will pass.

He’s technically fine.

Not injured enough to have to remain, he’s just lurking, watching too many of his squadron float  in tanks, avoiding going back to see what state a week of hit and run attacks have left his quarters in.

“Commander, you’re in the way.” One of the medics finally points out, and Wedge shuffles out of the way, a pang of guilt making him take stock of what is going on around him properly.

“Let me know if there are any changes.” He asks, although they always do.

“Of course sir.”

He nods and weaves his way carefully out of the medbay. His leg doesn’t hurt, he just thinks that it should, and he keeps the pace slow on the walk back to his quarters. The ship doesn’t seem in too bad repair, at least on the inside. He can remember seeing a couple of hull breaches in the last fight.

 

Someone has dropped his flight gear (or at least its replacement) in his quarters, and there’s a neat pile of datacards that mean requisitions to sign off. And notifications to make.

Five that he’s aware of. Possibly more if those still in medical don’t pull through. He scrubs his hand over his face and winces at the scratch of stubble. And there’s a light flashing on his comm panel. Multiple messages from Luke, through various secure channels, and a final one from the head communications officer, virtually ordering him to please stop the barrage of messages. Wedge isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or cry. He’s checks that they’re not operating on comm silence and opens a channel based on the last message.

He’s about to disconnect after no one answers quickly, suddenly not sure if he can deal with Luke’s worry, or having to think about what happened, when the call connects through. The line lags, and it takes them both a few seconds to say anything.

Luke looks like Luke, perhaps a bit more haggard, although that could just be the fuzzy line.

“Wedge! Force, you look.... What happened? Are you alright?” He rattles off so quickly, leaning towards the screen.

Wedge waves his hand, trying to keep a calm face. “Bad intel. Really bad intel.” It’s hard though, and he slumps in the chair. “S’good to see your face. Still a bit concussed, got out the tank a couple of hours ago.”

Luke’s face falls. “They wouldn’t tell me what happened.”

“It was classified, still is, but this is my fault. I read it wrong and this happened.” He knows it’s not really his fault; Cracken had agreed with the analysis, but it’s his people dead, not Cracken’s.

“Wedge, don’t. What happened?” Luke looks off to one side, but the background is blurry, and Wedge can’t actually tell where he is.

Wedge rubs his hand over his face again, leans on his forearms and sighs. “Bad intel. We should have seen it for what it was, I should have seen it for what it was, but it was a trap and now I’ve got five families to tell that their loved ones are dead and more still in bacta, and I’m just,” he stops, ‘how do I keep surviving’ unspoken between them because they’ve been through this before.

Luke’s looking at him across the comm line, the kind of look that goes too deep, even this far away from each other. “Oh love,” he leans forwards towards the grainy screen. “It’s not your fault, everyone knows you only ever do what you think is right. No one could ask for more from a commander.”  
“Don’t, Luke. I screwed this one up.” He fidgets in his seat. “I’m sorry if I worried you, I know you’re busy at the moment.”

“Wedge,” Luke sounds like he’s going to say something ridiculous like ‘I love you’ or ‘of course I’m going to worry’ which is the kind of thing that Wedge gets antsy about, so instead he just shakes his head. “Never too busy that I won’t worry about you lot.” He gives Wedge that lopsided farm boy smile, “We’re headed back corewards anyway.”

“If we get pulled from rotation, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks then?” Wedge asks, voice a little flat as he tries to stifle a yawn.

Luke looks off to the side again, “Yeah. Go to sleep Wedge, you look like crap.”

“Thanks,” he huffs, “but I need to make a start on these letters.”

“I hate to say it, but they’ll still be there when you wake up, and you’ll be clearer headed.”

“They’ve already been delayed while I was in the tank, they need doing.” Wedge insists.

“Wedge,” Luke looks at him, the kind of way he used to when he was Wedge’s commander. “Sleep. I know how much you care, everyone does, but no one is going to begrudge you a few hours’ sleep to clear your head.”

He wants to argue, mostly just because he can, but Luke is right, as usual, and the exhaustion is seriously putting paid to the ability to think clearly. “Alright.”

Luke nods. “Call me when you’re done with the notifications?”

“If I can.”

“Love you.” Luke reaches to cut the comm.

The words stick in Wedge’s throat, Luke knows, but he should be able to say it, especially now. “You too.” is the best that he can manage.

The comm clicks off and the blue glow fades, leaving just the low white lights of the room.

Wedge pushes himself up and scrubs his hands through his hair. He feels like he should shower, but he did that as soon as he was out of the tank, his routine is just out of sync now. He’s not even really sure what time it is.

Time to sleep, that bit he’s sadly sure of.

 

Even with the lights off and as tired as he is, sleep is too slow in coming. He starts drafting the calls and notifications he has to make, remembering each of the five he’s lost, holding them up against those who have gone before and finding nothing wanting other than his own command decisions, falling into reminiscences and regrets.

He can’t save them all, he knows that, but it is, he believes, his duty, to remember them all.

 

Sleep finds him eventually, and is blissfully dreamless, and apparently deep enough that he doesn’t hear his door open, only waking when he feels the mattress dip beside him. He tenses, sleep clearing too slowly from his head. No alarms are sounding, so if they’ve been boarded then no one has noticed yet, he hasn’t simply been shot in his sleep so they must want him as a prisoner, and his service blaster is on the other side of the room.

The weight shifts and then there’s a hand on his shoulder and instinct kicks in. He grabs the hand and wrenches the arm to the most awkward angle he can manage, tries to get himself out of the way. There’s an indignant yelp from his attacker, but he fails to get out of the way as he’s still disorientated and tangled in the blankets.

The other person hits the lights and he blinks, temporarily blinded.

“Wedge, shhh, it’s me.”

Blinking through the strobing in his eyes and the surge of adrenaline, he knows who it is but can’t properly make the connection, staring at the other man. Luke, its Luke, the rational part of his brain says for a minute, until things start to make sense again.

He’s on the floor, at least partially tangled in the blankets, panting as though he’d just gone through a serious training session.

“Luke?” he blurts out, feeling himself slur, “what are you doing here?”

Helping him to his feet and back onto the bed, Luke carefully climbs in after him, boots already off. “Couldn’t really leave you on your own after this. And apparently you were in a bad enough way they thought they ought to notify your emergency contact.”

“But you were,” Wedge stops, thinks, “what time is it?”

“About three, Mara flew me out.” He says, as though it was nothing.

Wedge wants to ask more; who gave him clearance, why did he bother, didn’t he have more important things to do, but Luke is warm and running careful hands up his back and through his hair, soothing him.

“Go back to sleep love,” he murmurs into Wedge’s hair.

He fights it for a while, second nature to stay awake and make the most of the time that they have together, but he’s exhausted and warm, and sleep takes him back easily enough.

 

“Hey,” a soft shake to his shoulder wakes him again, and she starts, confused for a brief moment before he blinks the sleep from his eyes and can focus on Luke. “Medical just commed. Janson is out of bacta, and the other two should be in the next couple of hours.”

Wedge lets go of the breath he had been holding since he heard the word ‘medical’ and slumps against Luke.

“Alright?” Luke asks after a couple of minutes and Wedge nods against his chest.

“Better that you’re here,” he mumbles, “which, why are you here?”  
“I was in the area.” Luke shrugs against him. “And I wasn’t going to let you tear yourself apart over this.”

“‘re lying.” Wedge says against his shoulder, pulling him closer.

“Only about the first bit.” Luke admits. “I don’t get to be there for you often enough.” he soothes his fingers through Wedge’s hair. “Seems only fair after everything you’ve done for me.”

He can feel Wedge scrunch his face up where they’re pressed together, “Don’t deserve you.”

Luke squeezes him, but Wedge is apparently stuck on that train of thought.

“I’m never around, unless I’m grounded, and then I’m miserable. I’m off on comm silence missions more and more, and I’m not even Force sensitive,” he mutters to Luke, “You could do so much better.”

With a sigh, Luke pulls away and makes Wedge look him in the eye. “I want you, not someone better you idiot. I fell in love with you, not someone who will always be around, or who has the Force. You, who lives by his convictions and cares far too much about his pilots and who can’t cook or match a pair of socks to save his life. We’re both always on the move, and I don’t think that’s going to stop for a long time, so we work, and I love you.”

Wedge is smiling a little awkwardly by the end, and Luke can’t help but kiss him. It’s soft and careful and full of the emotion that neither of them are particularly good at expression.

It’s nice for a while, until Wedge yawns and pulls away. “Sorry.”

“Go back to sleep love, I’ll wake you in a couple of hours.” Luke assures him.

Wedge nods and settles back against Luke.

 

He wakes first as his comm goes off, “Antilles,” he answers it, reaching over Luke.

“You asked to be notified when the last of your pilots were out of treatment, and we’ve just sent the last back to her quarters.” The tech on the other end tells him.

He breathes a sigh of relief and thanks them, scrubbing his hand over his face as he switches off the comm.

Carefully climbing out of bed, he bends to kiss Luke who is still snoring away.

“Dunno why you put up with me,” he mutters, “but you’re stuck with me I think.”

He smiles to himself and goes to the shower, trying to clear the fuzz from his head and find the words for all the letters of condolence he has to write.

 


End file.
